HDH Bad Moon Rising

Time for another Haunted Design House challenge.  This week it's "Bad Moon Rising".

You are to create a dark, Gothic, or Halloween-based art piece that depicts a BIG BAD MOON.  Make it full, waxing, waning or crescent. Just make it big and the main focus of your wonderfully wicked project.  Cute will get you in the door, but the Dungeon prefers things creepy and dark.

Well, I can definitely say that my moon is really big and is the main focus.   It's kinda light on the dark and creepy.

I started out with a template - hmm, the moon is boring, stars are way to big and owl is too small.  So, I used an embossing folder on the moon and highlighted the embossed bits with Pearlescent Yellow Brilliance, just to give it some dimension and then did a little dtp on the edge of the black card as well.  

Next, I ran some brown paper through my Big Shot with a wood grain impression plate and highlighted the entire thing with distress ink.  My adorable little punched owl stayed the same but I stamped him with some scratches and gave him some red eyes and ended up mounting both the tree and owl with foam tape.  The cemetery punch and broken fence at the bottom along with the tiny little silver stars rounded out my scene.  Ta-dah!

Sadly, this is most likely going to be it for me for the rest of the month - August was packed and now September is crazy - I have a bunch of work related travel!  Ugh. 

Thanks for looking and I'll see you in October!



HDH - Vile Vintage (see warning!)

Wow, I'm clocking in an entire day early over at Haunted Design House for the latest Monday Macabre - Vile Vintage - take something vile and make it appear vintage, or maybe use something vintage that would be considered vile! 

So, the only thing I could think of that was vile and vintage were post-mortem portraits which, for those innocent souls who follow me, are photos taken of loved ones once they've passed on.  (Please note this warning - there are photos of dead children below.)

I tried to keep everything Victorian era'ish.  I started with a plain brown slide mailer and gave it a quick black wash, then stamped a Victorian pattern using Brilliance ink to give it some background texture and then wrapped it in some beautiful grey satin ribbon.  The flower was made with hand-dyed loose petals from Michael's - they melt and curl nicely when you use a match.  I backed a pre-made frame with some flocked paper and a cross charm, which I added the stone to. 

Here's the inside:

The pictures don't actually belong together, but it seemed serendipitous when I found two different photos with twins.  I framed the photo on the left with black scrap and used it across the bottom on the right along with a small cross between the babies.  I accidentally broke one of the slides with my tea cup, but decided it added to feel of the piece and broke the other one as well. 

It's not really vile to me, but I'm sure someone is horrified on my behalf, so I hope that counts. 

Thanks for looking!

Random Redhead Challenge - Planes and Trains

Slipping in under the wire again at Gingersnap Creations for their Planes and Trains Challenge with a hint of steampunkishness. 

The vellum is printed with clocks and I stamped the plane on the front with StazOn but the other images are on cardstock underneath the vellum. 

This is one of my favorite sentiments, I use it for 'missing you' and 'thank for your help' cards.  I love how hazy it is under the vellum. 

I didn't like how boxy the finished card was, so I ran the top panel through a edging die to add the cool border on the left. 

As always, thank you for looking!

Flowers, Flowers

I love making flowers for my cards - a few years ago, I purchased a 500 flower pack from Oriental Trading Company.  It had 3 shapes, in 4 colors. I adore making these little flowers:

The small bud is one layer, the larger flower is 5 layers and the dual color flower is 4 layers plus 1 layer.

Here's the card:

I really love using the palette stamps for my backgrounds, particularly when I'm stamping on textured card stock.  I've also found that I get the best image when I layer color if I do a combination of inks - in this case, I used two Memento dye inks for the background with Brilliance pigment ink for the flourish.   I spritzed the stamp with water before I stamped on my paper.  You can see the faded water droplets on the dye portion; the Brilliance didn't react at all. 

Enjoy!

My First Challenge and Everything You Never Wanted to Know About This Card

So, I decided to do a challenge and I picked Gingersnap Creations - Coffee and Cream.  They have some fantastic entries.

Of course, I decided right away that because of the color combo I would do vintage  - a technique that I definitely struggle with.  How can you struggle with vintage, you ask? Because things generally touch in a random and crazy way.  Yes, yes, I stuggle with collage as well.  My batty brain just likes to make things that are even and symetrical. 

So, here is my first try: 

Let me regale you with the birth of this card - it was originally a 3 x 7 card. But it was too long and I cut it down.  Then I ripped one edge - too much - and trimmed it up.  Now it was way too skinny.  So I decided to go with an ATC, and I trimmed some more, added some pages from a 1940s book, did a little distressing and made a flower of distressed petals and a furniture brad that I beat around with a hammer.  For reasons unknown, once the flower was attached, I was thrown into a tailspin and decided that it needed to be a card again and ta-dah!  I'm not sure what my reasoning behind the pink is - perhaps there should be a sub-grouping of the challenge called Coffee, Cream and SweetnLow. 

On the plus side, I did notice that this fit in nicely with another challenge - Paper Pals Arts - Those Were the Days Vintage Theme (PPA80) so I'm going to be brave and enter it into both.

Thanks for looking!  As always, concrit and comments always welcome.